What do you believe in?

Not so long ago, I was stopped in the street by a woman who had a religious text in her hand and she simply asked me two questions.

Firstly, she asked me:-

“Sir, do you believe in God?”

To which I replied:-

“No, ma’am, I do not.”

(I know, how polite!).

I was expecting a followup question of “Why not?”, but instead, she looked at me and asked:-

“What do you believe in?”.

I knew she was expecting me to reply with “nothing”, so she then looked equally bemused and impressed when I gave my response…

“Myself”.

With that, I walked away with a strange feeling. Not at how my response was taken by this woman, who seemed keen to impress her faith upon to me but instead, it was because that was the first time I’d let someone into my own faith.

As many of my friends and family know, I am not a religious person, I’m am not a preacher of any faith or belief system, and many know my views of those people who try to preach THEIR beliefs onto everyone else.

Little do they know… I DO have my own faith. I DO my own beliefs.

The difference between my faith and the faith of this woman on the street is that my faith is just for me. It directly impacts me, it drives me, it pushes me to make me a better person every day.

I have things that I believe in which to anyone else might seem strange, or weird or even stupid, but to me they mean everything. I use my faith and my beliefs to keep me happy travelling on the journey that I want to go in.

But the main difference is that my faith is tailored for me, and me alone. As I’ve grown up, I know how my mind works, I know how my body works. I have researched, tried, trialled and tested many different beliefs and belief systems and from them, I have adopted the parts that have worked for me.

This isn’t to say that my faith and beliefs are perfect. I’m not saying that at all. But my faith is designed to adopt new ideas and even ‘rituals’ to see if they allow me to achieve my goal of being a better person every day.

What works in my faith for me may not work for someone else, so I do not present my faith to anyone. Because of my beliefs of other people faiths, I make sure that mine do not directly impact anyone, instead they indirectly impact others by making ME a better person.

My faith doesn’t have a name, it cannot be researched or written into a book for others to follow. It is just me. It is what makes me… me! You don’t have to like my faith, you don’t even have to like me, that’s the great thing about my faith, it just doesn’t matter. It is designed for me, not you.

My reason for this post is not to inspire you to join my faith (after all, that would be very hypocritical). Instead, it is just to get you thinking about your own faith and your own beliefs. What works for you? You don’t have to believe in a God or Gods or have a religion to have beliefs, to have faith. What do you believe in?